This morning I walked in to discover this -

I turned on the light for a better look and asked Adam what happened because I guarantee that wasn’t there when he went to bed.

Adam replied with “Spider-Man cut me”

He told me quite the story about him and Spider-Man and what they did last night but then when it came to the cut on his eye his bottom lip started to quiver and you could see he was upset.

When he calmed down I asked again what happened and he replied again with “Spider-Man cut me.”

In reality there are a few things I think could have happened. This morning about 1 am Adam was crying. I went into his room because his cry was his bad dream one. I didn’t turn on the light but I found him on the floor between his chair and bed.

At this point I assumed he crawled out of his bed because of a bad dream. I forgot to close his closet and he thinks monsters come out of it.

I’m honestly thinking he fell asleep on his chair last night (which has happened before) and rolled off. He could have hit his eye on a toy or on his toy box beside the chair. It’s not as exciting as fighting with Spider-Man but that is the only thing that makes sense.

We won’t tell Adam the truth, we’ll let him believe this cut is from a battle with a superhero.

He’s very convincing when he says it so maybe Spider-Man was around last night.

I however am not. So I grabbed the work for my secret project, a coffee and sweater and headed to the deck to get some work done.

As I’m writing I looked down and noticed how ratty my sweater is starting to look.

The zipper is broken, the seams are coming apart, there are holes all over it but there is no way I can get rid of this sweater. There are way too many stories behind it.

It’s a Roots Olympic Sweater. It was actually the last year Roots made the outfits for the Olympics. It was the last set made in Canada as well. The new provider makes them overseas (stupid eh?)

I bought the track suit on my honeymoon. While shopping they were actually marked down because it was a summer Olympics and it was the fall. The price I paid was less then 50% off which was amazing. I’ve now had this sweater as long as I’ve been married.

I wore this sweater to the hospital to deliver Adam. I also wore it home.

There have been campfires and hiking trips. There have been cold winters and amazing summers. There have been bad days where I put this sweater on and had comfort.

There will be a day where this sweater will be unwearable. But until then I’ll curl up once again with it, listen to the birds, drink my coffee and do some work.

I’ll sit here and think life is good.

Life is really good.

This is going to change!

We’re planning a trip to Disney! I believe that every child needs to go to Disney World at least once in their life. My parents took my sister and I 3 times and Brian has been many more times. It is a right of passage, it is a place where magic truly happens. It is also beyond expensive and something that we didn’t think we’d be able to do for another few years. (However we’re still planning that trip too.)

We’re saving pennies, trying to save as much as possible and even accepting donations. This is something we really want to do and it is something we want to pay for with cash.

We’ve decided to use Adam’s cuteness to our advantage as well.

If this kid runs up to you and asks “Money for Mickey?” are you going to say no?

We’re still a ways away from this trip. The dates still have to be hammered out but I am looking forward to it more than you can ever imagine.

It’s a wonderful goal and something awesome to work towards.

For those who are wondering – no this isn’t the special project either.

I have a “Poo-casso” on my hands.

On Saturday my lovely child painted a Grafakiki for me on his wall. A Grafakiki is an invisible monster from the show Toopy and Binoo which we saw earlier in the week. He said he drew it just for me. He is a very sweet and thoughtful boy however the fact that he did this wonderful drawing in poop was not so wonderful.

In all honesty I couldn’t even be mad at him. I had a hard time keeping the smile off my face as I told him he was very thoughtful but maybe he shouldn’t use his poo to draw me pictures. Brian had to clean up the bulk of the mess, which included cutting Adam’s nails, a quick bath followed by a long one while I cleaned not only the wall but the baseboard and the chair.

We’re potting training and in all fairness, Adam does have a rash on his derriere so maybe he was itchy and then thought, hey this is a great art medium. Today however when I went into his room as he was screaming, it turns out he had a bad dream. However when he opened his hands there was A LOT of caked on dried poop. Lord knows if he did that at the beginning of his nap or the end, but the kid didn’t draw on the wall. The chair needed to be cleaned again but it could have been much worse.

As it turns out I have some very smart friends and Andrea shared this link from her psych class. There is a thing called Freud’s Psycho-sexual Development. There are several different stages of this development going right into puberty however she hit the nail on the head with this -

The second stage of psychosexual development is the anal stage, spanning from the age of eighteen months to three years, wherein the infant’s erogenous zone changes from the mouth (the upper digestive tract) to the anus (the lower digestive tract), while the ego formation continues. Toilet training is the child’s key anal-stage experience, occurring at about the age of two years, and results in conflict between the Id (demanding immediate gratification) and the Ego (demanding delayed gratification) in eliminating bodily wastes, and handling related activities (e.g. manipulating excrement, coping with parental demands). The style of parenting influences the resolution of the Id–Ego conflict, which can be either gradual and psychologically uneventful, or which can be sudden and psychologically traumatic. The ideal resolution of the Id–Ego conflict is in the child’s adjusting to moderate parental demands that teach the value and importance of physical cleanliness and environmental order, thus producing a self-controlled adult. Yet, if the parents make immoderate demands of the child, by over-emphasizing toilet training, it might lead to the development of a compulsive personality, a person too concerned with neatness and order. If the child obeys the Id, and the parents yield, he or she might develop a self-indulgent personality characterized by personal slovenliness and environmental disorder. If the parents respond to that, the child must comply, but might develop a weak sense of Self, because it was the parents’ will, and not the child’s ego, who controlled the toilet training. - Taken from Wikipedia

Who knew potty training would have such lasting effects on how Adam turns out.

Adam was quite proud of his poo drawing. Adam is also very possessive of his pee that he puts in the potty. If he uses his small potty he has to pour it in the toilet himself (I wanted to do the same as a child.) Sometimes he gets very upset if you dump it out against his will or without letting him help.

After today I am hoping that this stage goes by quickly. It is a little gross, I have no idea what he touched or not. It almost qualifies the purchase of a black light but what I find might terrify me.  There was also a lingering smell in his room for a few hours after which led me to believe he hid some poop somewhere. The amount of  laundry in combination with this and potty training has been crazy.

I hope today there is no poop paintings. I’ll take paint, marker, crayon or chalk on the walls. If he pees on my hardwood or even on my carpet I can handle that.

This poop thing, not so much.

I’m exhausted to the point that if I was a celebrity I would be checking into a posh Hollywood hospital for a few days or rest.

Unfortunately I’m not a celebrity or a millionaire so taking a few days to rest is not an option. I’m a busy Mom who will have to settle for trying to rest, thinking I might get some and then get body slammed by a 40 pound boy, who follows it up with “Mommy Alright?”

Honestly Mommy Isn’t Alright. Mommy needs to work less, Mommy needs help with the housework. Mommy needs to get more then 6 hours of sleep a night and Mommy needs a break.

I left work early on Saturday because a sudden burst of dizziness, lightheaded feeling and not being able to keep my eyes focused made working impossible. I was also told I was as white as a ghost. I tried eating, drinking and resting with little improvement.

Now after a full day of these feeling, sleeping for 12 hours there is improvement but only when I lie in bed. I’ve not been to the doctor yet because I know exactly why I feel this way. Exhaustion, stress and anxiety. I know exactly how to fix it too. I need to wipe my plate clean, take a few days to sleep as much as possible, breathe deeply and do somethings to unwind.

As I type what I need to do I laugh to myself because only in my wildest dreams can that be accomplished. Many people are quick to point out the long weekend this weekend. Time to relax, unfortunately I work the entire weekend.

My plan for nap time is to limit the time at my desk to 1 hour, then nap for 1 hour. I have to start dinner by 4 to make sure I can eat it and get ready for work. I have to put time in at my desk because I promised delivery of a product today at the latest and still haven’t done so.

Many people will respond to this post with many suggestions on how to slow down, manage my time better or tell me I need to start saying No. Unfortunately not the full story is posted on here and things are deeper and more complicated then they seem.

This week is brutal, maybe there is some light in next week. I’ve learned though not to hold my breath. I look back at having my wisdom teeth out where I planned to be in bed for 3 days and in reality I only had less then 24 hours, and then I was back to life.

I’ve discovered sometimes you can’t have what you want, and won’t get what you need.

Attempt 1 we waited until Adam was asleep. It was almost 11pm when Brian and I teamed up. He held the flashlight and I held Adam down and started to work on the feet. This did not go well. The second I started to touch Adam’s feet he started to wake up. We decided this would not end well and let Adam sleep.

Attempt 2 was the next morning. There was a lot of crying and kicking. I tried when he was sitting up then I ended up pinning Adam down on the bed with my body and attempted to remove them. Still no luck and an hour later my whole body hurt from holding down a kicking screaming two year old without hurting him.

Attempt 3 was the one where I figured everything out and had success. Again I worked on him on the bed but there was no kicking or screaming. There was whining and restlessness but it was much easier this time around.

So your kid has splinters, this is what you will need and what to do.

Supplies
- a great set of tweezers
- a sterile needle
- facecloth
- polysporin
- band-aids
- a distraction

What to Do
1) You want to soak the area of the splinter in warm water and clean the area well. This was easily achieved by giving Adam a bath

2) Find a distraction for the subject. For us it was lying on the bed watching Pink Panther on the iPad. I also gave Adam a pair of tweezers just like “Mommy’s Special Pinchers”

This process can take a while. It was almost an hour because when Adam was getting upset I stopped what I was doing.

3) Depending on how deep the splinter is you may not have to do this. I took the needle and carefully scraped the skin over the splinter. If you can grab the splinter with tweezers and pull it out. That is the ideal way however Adam’s were large and embedded deep. When I had the area open and could get to the splinter with my tweezers I just pulled it out.

4) I put polysporin over the area and covered it with a band-aid. This however was short lived because Adam didn’t like the feel of the band-aid on his feet.

Once Adam understood that this wasn’t going to take forever and I figured out the optimal way to remove the splinters it wasn’t that bad. The trick was to soak the skin, that made things much easier and less intrusive.

I’m glad these ones are out. We’ll have to check Adam’s feet more frequently because I’m sure these aren’t the only ones of the season we’ll have to deal with.

Toopy and Binoo is a cartoon short that usually appears between shows on the children’s TV networks or occasionally many of the shorts are clumped together for a 30 minutes show spot. Toopy is a giant rat and his best friend in the whole world is Binoo. These two critters spend their days using their imagination going on adventures. I won’t lie. I LOVE THIS SHOW! It’s so cute and does have some pretty good lessons about friends, sharing, empathy and so on. This is one of the first shows that Adam sat and laughed out loud at. He was with my Mom watching it and he laughed hysterically at this episode.

When it was announced that their live show was coming, my Mom didn’t hesitate when I asked her if she wanted to go with us. (She loves them too.) On the way there I admitted that I didn’t know if this was a good idea because Adam was acting like a terrible two year old toddler for the previous few days and I expected the worse while we were out. Once we were in the venue my horrible two year old turned into the best behaved kid there.

Before the show started – a nice selfie. I didn’t bring my good point and shoot camera because on the ticket it said no cameras and I’ve had bad experiences at that particular venue before with their camera policy so I didn’t even risk taking it. I wish I had. Everyone had cameras as well as a few had DSLRs! Please pardon my photos because I took them with my iPhone.

We were positioned at the side of the stage so we could see people behind the stage and my Mom was the first one to catch a glimpse of Toopy and Binoo. Adam caught a glimpse too and the excitement began. Once the show started he was wonderful and so involved in it. The smile on his face was from ear to ear and the excitement in his eyes was priceless.

Our seats were really good, there was a little bit of a dead area right under us however there was always enough going on that there was something to look at and Toopy and Binoo spent most of their time center stage which was nice.

Hey look a guy in pink! He was really pink. My Mom and I were laughing because earlier we were discussing the pink shoes. Overall the show was good. There was a 15 minute break halfway through which was a horrible idea. I realize the performers need a break and they needed to move the set around however Adam along with many other children lost a bit of interest in the second half of the show. (We have high expectations now comparing everything to The Wiggles, who took a break but had other performers on the stage to keep the kids engaged.) I also found that the sound wasn’t leveled as well as it was during the second half as it was the first half of the show. Even Adam said a few times that it was too loud.

Overall it was a great time out, the show was good. Adam loved it. I asked him this morning if he had fun just playing and he came back with “Lots fun, Toopy and Binoo.” He keeps talking about it like he did when we saw the Wiggles.

To see that excitement and joy on my child’s face was again worth every penny spent. I am so glad we took him!